Baby Bottle Decay

Dentists often use many different words that all refer to the same thing. Dentists say calculus when they mean tartar and radiographs when they really mean to say x-rays. One interesting group of synonyms like this are used to describe a child’s first set of teeth. Here are six different names that are all used to describe our first set of teeth.

Six Names for Baby Teeth and Their Meanings

1. Baby Teeth

The first set of teeth are most often known as baby teeth. This is because they start to come in around the age of six months, when you’re a baby.

2. Primary Teeth

Primary means first. Baby teeth are often called primary teeth since they are the first set of teeth that come into the mouth.

3. Milk Teeth

Long ago, people thought that babies’ teeth grew in as a result of the mother’s milk washing over the baby’s gums. This is how the first set of teeth became known as milk teeth. Because this was so widely believed, many babies would be put to death if they were born with teeth, a condition known as natal teeth.

Baby Teeth – Like Leaves – Eventually Fall, Leading to their buyambiennorx.com name of Deciduous Teeth

4. Deciduous Teeth

Remember learning about coniferous and deciduous trees in elementary school? Deciduous trees lose their leaves. Baby teeth are often called deciduous teeth because they fall out, similar to how a deciduous tree’s leaves fall off.

5. Training Teeth

The first set of teeth are also called training teeth because they train the child to take care of the permanent teeth. Although they are training teeth, sometimes it is still necessary to get dental work done on baby teeth in order to keep the permanent tooth healthy.

6. Temporary Teeth

Temporary teeth is the counterpart to permanent teeth. Since the first set of teeth generally stay in the mouth for less than a decade, they are sometimes labeled temporary teeth due to the fact that they are eventually replaced by the permanent teeth.

Baby Teeth By Any Other Name Are Still Baby Teeth

Don’t let your dentist confuse you — all of these terms refer to your child’s first set of teeth! Can you think of any other names for baby teeth? I’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!

Many people come into the dental school and tell us things like, “I just have bad teeth” and “My parents and grandparents all had soft teeth – and my teeth are soft too, so I get lots of cavities.”

While it may be true that some people do have teeth that are more susceptible to cavities, there is usually another reason that these people have cavities.

As dentists, we can remove the tooth decay and make your tooth look shiny and new again, but we can’t prevent you from getting cavities in the future – that’s up to you.

The tooth pictured probably doesn’t look too glamorous. Since most people don’t see what their dentist sees, I thought I’d put this picture up so you can see what an extensive cavity looks like.

If you’ve had a lot of cavities and want to know why, the following list just might give you some answers!

25 Risk Factors for Getting Cavities

1 – Cavities

I listed cavities first because if you’ve had cavities in the past, that’s usually one of the best predictors of whether or not you’ll get cavities in the future. It makes sense that if you already have lots of cavities, that you’re more likely to keep getting cavities until you make some changes.

Also, if you have white spots on some of your teeth that have recently appeared, that could be the sign of a beginning cavity, which also puts you at risk for getting a cavity.

2 – Having Lots of Cavity-Causing Bacteria

There are millions of little bacteria in your mouth that eat your food every time you eat. They make acid and smear it on your teeth. The acid eats away at your tooth until a cavity develops.

Needless to say, if you have an abundant amount of cavity-causing bacteria in your mouth, you’re at a high risk for getting a cavity.

3 – Eating Sugar Frequently

If you eat sugar a lot, you give the bacteria exactly what it wants to eat: fermentable carbohydrates. The more often you feed them, the more cavity-causing acid that they will produce.

4 – Bad Crowns and/or Fillings

If you have a poor quality filling or crown in your mouth, it may actually cause you to get a cavity by allowing plaque to hang out where you can’t reach it with routine brushing and flossing.

5 – Bad Oral Hygiene

If you don’t brush away the bacteria often, you will allow them to grow and destroy your teeth.

6 – High Acidic Foods Intake

Eating or drinking acidic foods can eat away at the hard, outer layer of your teeth known as the enamel. Since the enamel is the layer of your teeth that is most resistant to cavities, if you wear it down, you will be putting yourself at risk for cavities.

8 – Nursing Too Long (Bottle and Breast)

If you weren’t weaned from the breast or bottle until you were a toddler, this could have put you at a higher risk for getting cavities. Most research points to the bottle, but I have heard conflicting reports regarding prolonged breastfeeding.

9 – Cavities Under Fillings

Getting a cavity under a filling means that there was a problem with the filling (age, done incorrectly, fractured, etc.) or that you weren’t taking very good care of the filling. Either way, if you get a cavity under a filling, it puts you at high risk for getting cavities in other teeth.

10 – Bad Family Dental Health

If your family has bad dental health, chances are that you will as well. This could be related to lack of oral hygiene being taught in the home, genetic abnormalities in the teeth, or high numbers of the bad bacteria in your mouth.

11 – Exposed Root Surfaces

Receding gums will expose the root of the tooth, which does not have a protective enamel covering. Consequently, the dentin that makes up the roots of your teeth dissolves at a higher pH than the enamel. That means that weak acids that wouldn’t affect your enamel can eat away at the roots of your teeth and cause a cavity.

12 – Defect In Your Enamel

If you have a defect in your enamel, it could make you more susceptible to cavities. Some examples might be enamel that didn’t form correctly, congenital defects like amelogenesis imperfecta, or a defect in enamel formation that can happen to a permanent tooth when its corresponding baby tooth gets knocked out.

13 – Having a Disability

If you have a disability, it can be more difficult for you to take care of your teeth. Also, many caregivers may not pay very much attention to the oral hygiene of those under their care.

14 – Dry Mouth

When you don’t have enough saliva in your mouth, it is known as dry mouth or xerostomia. Saliva helps your teeth in several ways. If you suffer from dry mouth, your dentist may be able to help by prescribing you medication to help increase your salivary flow.

15 – Genetic Abnormality of Your Teeth

The anatomy of a tooth can vary greatly. Some people have deeper grooves in their biting surface that are hard to clean. Some people’s enamel may not completely cover the whole tooth. This can create pockets where bacteria can hide out and cause cavities.

There are many other genetic abnormalities that can affect the teeth, such as localized microdontia, which can make some teeth smaller than others and possibly make them harder to clean.

16 – Having Lots of Large Fillings

Many large fillings can put you at risk for developing cavities. Having lots of large fillings increases the amount of tooth:filling interfaces that are present in your mouth. If bacteria get in between the filling and the tooth, they can be nearly impossible to clean out and can cause cavities.

17 – Chemotherapy and Radiation Treatment

Having chemotherapy or radiation treatment in the head and neck area can reduce salivary flow and cause other oral problems which increase the risk of getting a cavity.

18 – Eating Disorders

Eating disorders can increase the risk of a cavity in a couple of ways. Those with eating disorders tend to not have a very balanced diet, which may contribute to cavities. Also, bulimics bathe their teeth in acid each time they purge. This wears away the tough enamel surface of the tooth which makes the tooth mores susceptible to cavities.

19 – Drug and/or Alcohol Abuse

Those that abuse drugs and/or alcohol put themselves at a greater risk for developing cavities.

20 – Irregular Dental Care

By not going to the dentist regularly, you avoid learning about the condition of your mouth. The dentist can point out small problems before they turn into cavities. By avoiding your checkups, you lose out on the opportunity to take care of small problems before they become big.

21 – Not Knowing What Plaque Is

Many people don’t know what plaque is. If you don’t know what’s happening inside of your mouth, you probably won’t do anything about it.

22 – Not Knowing How to Remove Plaque

23 – Being Poor

People with a lower socioeconomic status tend to get more tooth decay. There are exceptions to this rule, but this is one of the main reasons that so many states provide free dental care to low-income children. Unfortunately, these programs haven’t eliminated the gap in dental health between the rich and the poor, and many poor parents simply don’t find the time to take their kids to the dentist.

Interestingly, our computer software at my dental school tells us to ask each patient if they have a “low socioeconomic status.” It can be an awkward question, and almost everyone skips over it.

25 – Braces

Although braces can straighten your teeth and make them look great, they do increase the risk of getting cavities. Braces make it harder to brush your teeth and make it nearly impossible to floss. In order to floss with braces, you have to use a floss threader to get under the wire – I know I didn’t do that when I was a teenager!

I hope you enjoyed the list and it helped you pinpoint the cause(s) of your cavities. I compiled the above list from my own experience as well as information from the following textbooks:

Do You Have a Lot of Cavities?

Did anything on this list ring a bell for you? Although I tried to include everything I could think of that would cause cavities, I may have missed something. I’d love to hear about what you think is causing your cavities whether it’s on the list or not. Feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below.

Deamonte Driver was a typical twelve year old boy growing up in Maryland. In January 2007, he complained that he had a headache to his mother, Alyce. Then he said his tooth hurt.

Alyce, his concerned mother took him to the emergency room at the local hospital where the doctors found that bacteria from decayed teeth had traveled through his blood into his brain, causing a serious infection.

Fast forward six weeks to a Saturday near the end of February. Deamonte underwent two operations and it looked like he would recover. His mother spent all day Saturday with her son, then went home. The very next day the hospital called his mother and told her that he was unresponsive. By the time she made it to the hospital, Deamonte, her son of only 12 years had passed away.

Tooth Decay: A Serious Disease

Deamonte’s story is an extreme one. Tooth decay doesn’t always kill people. My purpose in sharing this story was to let you know that tooth decay is a disease and it can be serious. It has many of the same traits as more well-known diseases. Here are a few lesser known facts about tooth decay:

1 – Tooth decay is contagious — you have to “catch the disease.” The bacteria that cause tooth decay can easily be transmitted from one person to another. When babies are born, their mouths are sterile. If they had teeth, they could eat lots of sugar without any detrimental effects on their teeth. Babies usually catch the bacteria that cause tooth decay from one of their parents or siblings.

2 – Tooth decay can cause pain. If a cavity progresses without pain, it can cause a painful toothache.

3 – Tooth decay can cause children to miss school. This can be either due to pain or multiple dental visits to take care of the diseased tooth.

4 – Tooth decay is the most common disease of early childhood! The American Academy of Pediatric dentistry has stated, “Caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Approximately 60% of children experience caries in their primary teeth by age 5.”

5 – Tooth decay can cause developmental problems and nutritional deficiencies. Here’s another quote from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry:

Rampant caries is one of the factors causing insufficient development in children who have no other medical problems. Children with early childhood caries (ECC) may be severely underweight because of the associated pain and disinclination to eat. Nutritional deficiencies during childhood can impact cognitive development.

Conclusion

Hopefully you can see that dental caries isn’t just a small problem. It affects over half of all children under age 5!

Whether you call it tooth decay, cavities, or caries – an infection of your teeth can be a serious problem.

Do you have any questions or comments to share about dental cavities? Please leave them below in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

It’s sad to see a two year old child with horrible teeth. At such a young age, children don’t really understand oral hygiene. Many times, poor oral hygiene in a toddler is the result of parents who don’t understand oral hygiene. Since most cavities are preventable, this topic fascinates me. With children of my own, I have done quite a bit of research on the oral hygiene of toddlers.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry publishes various “policy papers” which inform the world the status of their position on certain issues. In their paper entitled Policy on Early Childhood Caries (ECC), they spell out five mistakes that parents make that can have a detrimental effect on the oral hygiene of their children.

I’ll list those five mistakes and talk about what you can do as a parent to avoid hurting your child’s teeth.

Five Mistakes That Can Give Your Child Cavities

1 – Putting infants to sleep with a bottle that contains sugar. Pretty much any drink that you would give your child to lull them to sleep contains sugar. Fruit juice and milk both contain sugars that can cause plaque to fluorish and eat away their teeth.

If you must put your child to sleep with a bottle, the only safe beverage to fill it with is water.

2 – Breast feeding on-demand after your baby’s first tooth comes in. The book Pediatric Dentistry by Pinkham states the following:

Infants who are breastfed truly “on demand” may suckle 10 to 40 times in a 24-hour period and are at risk for the consequences of prolonged acid production. Nevertheless, many feel that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any harmful effects. Dentists should advise mothers who breastfeed on demand to clean their infant’s teeth frequently, verify that systemic fluoride intake is optimal, and monitor dietary habits carefully.

Each time your baby eats, you expose his or her teeth to the harmful acids that plaque produces. By setting a schedule to feed your baby, you can drastically reduce the opportunities that bacteria have to cause trouble in your child’s mouth.

3 – Not weaning your child from a bottle after they turn one. The American Academy of Pediatric dentistry says that “Parents should be encouraged to have infants drink from a cup as they approach their first birthday. Infants should be weaned from the bottle at 12 to 14 months of age.”

When a child drinks out of a cup, they can drink the same quantity of liquid much more quickly than if they were drinking out of a bottle. By not weaning your toddler from a bottle or sippy cup, you will increase the amount of time that their teeth are exposed to the sugar in their drinks, and increase their risk of getting cavities.

Although it may seem impossible to have your one-year-old child drink out of a cup, it is possible with the right training. My wife and I began training our daughter to drink out of a small glass when she was 9 months old. Her first glass was actually a shot glass with a small amount of water. [Note: Neither my wife nor I drink alcohol, so we bought shot glasses for this very purpose.] She still used this sippy cup to drink out of as well, but we gradually introduced a real glass, helping her at first. After a while, she started to catch on.

Now, at fourteen months of age, she can independently drink out of this glass without spilling. You might wonder why we used a real glass since it is breakable, but after she saw what happened when you drop it on the floor (which we promptly cleaned up) she hasn’t dropped another one!

A paper by the American Academy of Pediatrics entitled The Use and Misuse of Fruit Juice in Pediatrics states:

It is prudent to give juice only to infants who can drink from a cup (approximately 6 months or older). Teeth begin to erupt at approximately 6 months of age. Dental caries have also been associated with juice consumption. Prolonged exposure of the teeth to the sugars in juice is a major contributing factor to dental caries. The AAP and the American Academy of Pedodontics recommendations state that juice should be offered to infants in a cup, not a bottle, and that infants not be put to bed with a bottle in their mouth. The practice of allowing children to carry a bottle, cup, or box of juice around throughout the day leads to excessive exposure of the teeth to carbohydrates, which promotes development of dental caries.

If you can decrease the number of snacktimes that your child has per day, you will decrease the number of times that their teeth are weakened by the acidic by-products of plaque.

Conclusion

By following the above tips, you can ensure that your child will have healthy teeth. Healthy teeth are valuable to a child’s self-esteem and overall health. Following these tips can also start a habit of healthy eating that will remain with them throughout their life.

Do you have any questions or comments about your baby’s dental and oral health? Please leave them below in the comments!

WELCOME

Thanks for coming to Oral Answers. My name's Tom and I'm a dentist in rural Virginia.

I started this site to help you have a better understanding of dentistry so that you can make informed decisions regarding your dental treatment.

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